“No, we were seated side by side, facing the kitchen,” Abrams said. “The chef is supposed to be quite amazing. We had just placed our order and were talking small talk and business.”
“The waiter was bringing our soup. He had just stepped from the kitchen. The tray full of soup bowls exploded,” Clarisse said, her eyes growing wider, her fingers touching her mouth again. “Then the man across from me jerked.” Her fingers pressed hard against her lips and she spoke through them. “He was just getting ready to stand, leaning forward and up. His head went bloody and blood splattered all over the woman behind him. People started screaming. I started screaming.” Her eyes filled with tears and I realized that she was wearing colored contacts, the eyes beneath them gray and not the pretty blue she showed to the world. I remembered the contacts on the corpse’s eyes at the Holloways’ house. Was there a connection? With contact lenses? No. That was foolish. Clarisse wiped her eyes, smearing the mascara even more. “Can we please go?”
“I think we’re done here. I need to get my wife home,” Abrams said, standing, giving a politician’s smile, one that said several things at once. The most obvious was that he was too important to deal with the kind of questioning suffered by the hoi polloi and that he had been far more patient than he had to be. “I can come in tomorrow to give a statement. My wife will be writing hers and sending it in by e-mail. I have your card. If there are problems with that arrangement you can certainly speak with my attorney.”
“Of course, Senator. Thank you for staying and talking to us. If we have further questions we’ll be in touch, but I can’t imagine that will be necessary,” Crowley said smoothly. “Stevens, see them safely to their Secret Service escorts and then to their car, please. Make sure they get away safely. And see Justin Tolliver and his wife in.”
“Yes, ma’am,” a suit said and opened the door. “This way, Senator, Mrs. Tolliver.”
“My brother and his wife had to leave,” Abrams Tolliver said. “Babysitter complications. He said to call and he’d come to you at your convenience.” Abrams held out a hand to Crowley. “Our cards with office and private contact information.”
“Thank you,” Crowley said, though it was clear she was peeved that someone had left her interrogation site.
When they were gone, Crowley turned off the mic and looked around the room. “Comments?”
“One,” I said. “He had a crust of mud on his shoe. It was a dress shoe. Fancy. He was in the city. Why mud?”
“Anything particularly odd about the mud?” she asked, as if humoring me.
“Not a thing,” I said, “if he was a farmer. He’d been in a car and a restaurant, not a field.”
“Nell,” T. Laine said.
“What? You think she’s gonna bite me?”
“Speaking of biting, why did you let Ming of Glass go?” Crowley asked smoothly. It was a cop question, slid in when not expected, hoping to get a reaction.
“Because she wasn’t in the restaurant when the firing started. She drove up later. She waited around for a while in case you needed to talk to her, but then she left. I’ve got her number if you need to talk to her.” I held up my cell.
“You have the Master of the—” She stopped. “You have the number of Ming of Glass in your personal cell phone database?”
“Her security guard, actually.” Whose name I didn’t know. Calling her Yummy would be embarrassing, but the SSSAIC didn’t ask for it. “I wouldn’t call in the daytime. That’s like poking a sleeping lion with a stick.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” Crowley stood and gathered her belongings, her face expressionless, her emotions indecipherable. “Include that information in your report,” she said to me. To the others, she said, “You are all dismissed. I expect reports in my e-mail by ten a.m.”
We all filed out of the room and into the cleanup.
There were three wounded and one dead, not counting the officer, lots of rounds fired, and no one had seen anything. I scanned the files being put together by JoJo and recognized none of the victims’ names. Worse, with the exception of the presence of the senator and the expected presence of Ming of Glass, Jo could find nothing that tied any of the dead or wounded to each other or to the people at the Holloways’ party. The worry about assassination or domestic—or paranormal—terrorism was still a very real possibility.
? ? ?
Near dawn, JoJo said into my earpiece, “Nell, I got a vamp calling, saying she needs her taxi driver at University of Tennessee Medical Center. She asked for Maggot.”
“Ha-ha,” I said. But I slid off my chair and jogged to my truck. I gave her my ETA and once again appreciated the superheater in the old Chevy.
? ? ?
Yummy opened the passenger door, looked over the interior, and said, “You have got to be kidding.”
“Nope. You could call an Uber.”
Her face scrunched in distaste; she slid in and closed the door. “Hell, Maggot. Can’t you afford a new car? Doesn’t PsyLED provide you a car? Does it have a radio?” She punched the buttons and twisted the knobs.
“Probably. Eventually. And yes. But it stopped working last week. Buckle up.” I slid her a sideways glance and pulled into the light five a.m. traffic as she complied. “No working radio. We’ll have to talk,” I said.
“About maggots?”
I laughed. “About life. Tell me about yourself.”
“I’m sure you have a dossier on me. Read it.”
“My time’s valuable.” I let my words glide into church-speak. “You’uns ain’t important enough to me to read it.”
Yummy burst out laughing and twisted around in the seat so her legs were splayed, one knee angled at me. “I like you, Nell.”
“Hmmm.”
“You’re not gonna say you like me?”
“My mama taught me to be polite and to not lie. Those two things aren’t always mutually agreeable.”
Yummy laughed again and dropped her head against the back window with a soft thud. Her very pale blond hair swung and fell still. “I was born the first time in 1932 in a little town in South Louisiana. I was turned in 1953 by a vamp named Grégoire, who said he loved me and that we should be together forever. He looked fifteen but in the sack he was truly immortal.” Yummy glanced my way. “He could do things with his mouth . . .”